We have finally taken the plunge and are about to move aboard as soon as we finish up our "land-based" loose ends. We are planning on finally moving onto our boat in two weeks. My question is this: we have two kids, one of which will be doing a Calvert Academy correspondence course through a Colorado Public correspondence course. So we need to talk with her 1st grade teacher one to two times a week for a half hour which we need Skype for. What do most of you use for internetservice? I realize there are many threads about this but what actually works? Oh, and for some of the threads I have read I feel more like Charlie Brown sitting in the classroom when the teacher is speaking and I can't really understand a word she is saying;; So you might need to break it down for me a little. The boat is currently in Florida and we are planning on sailing around the Caribbean this winter. We will have a Mac Book and an ipad as well as a cell phone and a satellite phone. We are strongly considering an SSB. Thanks for any info and we are really looking forward to sharing an anchorage of two with some of you

Not counting satellite, you have long distance wifi as mentioned above, a usb dongle from a cellphone provider, or an ssbradio with a Pactormodem (very slow). I plan to use my alfa network extender with the 9db antenna (that's working pretty well) or a usb dongle. Don't buy a t-mobile dongle at Radio Shack, that sucked. Radio shack sucked and t-mobile's customer service was a joke as well as the connection dropping out constantly even though I had 3-5 bars of signal. I'm still trying to get $25.00 back for airtime that I wasn't able to use because the radio shack employee entered the wrong address, wrong name, and wrong PIN.

If you are planning to move around fairly frequently then the Long Distance WiFi (external powered antennas) is the way to go. There are dozens on the market, but try to get the most powerful one you can - at least 1000mw. These will reach out and give you a better selection of the available "for pay" Wifi systems. Free WiFi is pretty much gone except where marinas offer it as a side benefit of renting one of their slips.